London - Friday 27 July 2001: Yahoo! UK & Ireland, the leading Internet communications, commerce and media company, has announced the launch of Yahoo! Travel. Yahoo! Travel is a comprehensive resource for researching and planning recreational and business travel. Yahoo! Travel brings together the top providers of travel services so you can find everything you need to arrange your trip: users can gather information about potential travel destinations in the ‘Travel Guide’, get up-to-date with the latest travel ‘News’ and search for flight, holiday, hotel or cruise bargains in the ‘Deals’ section.

The ‘Travel Guide’ provides detailed information on over 325 destinations from countries all around the world with content areas including: history & culture, accommodation, events & festivals, dining & drinking, nightlife & entertainment, shopping, getting around, sports & outdoors, and attractions & sight-seeing. The ‘Travel Guide’ also provides maps, weather reports and currency converters for each destination. The site will be a significant guide and a useful tool for travellers whether they are interested in a two-week package holiday in the sun or an around the world trip. Content providers to the ‘Travel Guide’ include: Wcities, World Travel Guide (Columbus Publishing), Conde Nast Traveller, Travel Intelligence, and Business Traveller.

Yahoo! Travel also allows users to shop for the best airfare, holiday, hotel or cruise deals without having to visit multiple sites. The ‘Deals’ section of Yahoo! Travel offers Yahoo! users ready access to some of the best bargains available on the Internet, from some of the biggest names in the travel market. It creates in a single place a user-friendly searchable database of holiday and travel deals from companies including: Go, Airline Network, Saga, Lastminute, Ferrysavers and British Airways.

There are also links from Yahoo! Travel to travel specific Yahoo! Clubs and Chat communities, travel related stores in Yahoo! Shopping, and useful travel resources in Yahoo! Yellow Pages.

According to Jupiter MMXI, the number of visitors to travel websites from the UK grew by 31% over the 6 months to April 2001 to over 4M. Users visit travel websites not only to find late cheap deals, but also to research their holidays in advance. Jupiter MMXI’s data indicates that there are clear seasonal trends in surfing behaviour on travel sites, with peaks in usage in the UK in July and January / February. Visitors to travel sites spend an average of 2 hours per month viewing these.

Lindsay Biggart, Head of Marketing for Yahoo! UK & Ireland, commented:

“We are thrilled to be able to deliver real benefits to our users when planning and purchasing their travel. As travel is such an important content and commerce area on the Internet, this is a significant step in further strengthening our position as the UK’s favourite portal through providing our users with a comprehensive and compelling offering”.

Visit Yahoo! Travel at http://uk.travel.yahoo.com/

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For further information, please contact:

Yahoo! UK & Ireland Press Office

0207 306 9188

About Yahoo! UK & Ireland

Yahoo! UK & Ireland provides commerce, communication and media services to meet the needs of local consumers.  This includes world leading communication services such as Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mobile; community products such as Yahoo! Clubs and Yahoo! Geocities; rich content such as Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Sport, Yahoo! Music and commerce services such as Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions.

Yahoo.co.uk is one of the most popular and most visited websites in the UK & Ireland, generating 563 million page views in June 2001 (ABC Electronics).

Yahoo! UK & Ireland is part of Yahoo! Inc. Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet communications, commerce and media company that offers a comprehensive branded network of services to more than 200 million individuals each month worldwide. As the first online navigational guide to the Web, www.yahoo.com is the leading guide in terms of traffic, advertising, household and business user reach. Yahoo! is the No. 1 Internet brand globally and reaches the largest audience worldwide. The company also provides online business and enterprise services designed to enhance the productivity and Web presence of Yahoo!'s clients. These services include Corporate Yahoo!, a popular customized enterprise portal solution; audio and video streaming; store hosting and management; and Web site tools and services. The company's global Web network includes 24 World properties. Yahoo! has offices in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Australia, Canada and the United States, and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.